in somnis veritas
by nicnac918
Summary: Selected excerpts from the dream journals of Stanford Filbrick Pines. Third in ergo sum series


AN: Previous story is "tempus fugit" (Story ID:12725876)

Additionally, as FFN is the worst at formatting, everything in parenthesis should be read as if struck-through.

* * *

 **June 20, 1966**

My very first entry! I've been doing some reading on dreams and how they're windows to the unconscious mind and have decided I should start a dream journal. Keeping track of my dreams may help me to understand myself better – a noble pursuit! – but I'm more interested in the accounts of people who say they've come up with some of their best ideas or solutions to unsurmountable problems in their dreams. Imagine the discoveries I could make, the truths I could uncover!

My dream last night was of Stanley and myself sailing on the Stan O' War, on the search for anomalies and international treasure. At one point the seven-eyed monster that Stanley saw the other day showed up and was sailing with us. Beyond that I don't remember much about the dream, but my research indicates that as I continue to record my dreams, my recall will get better as well.

Until tomorrow, or the next time I have a dream, journal!

 **November 8, 1971**

I dreamt that Stan was back home again. Exactly the same as the previous nine dreams I've had over the past three weeks since Stan's been gone. (I don't understand why he hasn't come back yet; it's not like Pa would actually kick him out for good.) (He's so stubborn. If he would just come back and admit what he did) (It's not like I was saying I never want to go sailing at all, I just wanted a chance to have something for me. I wasn't trying to) (Please Stan, just come back; I can't) (I miss) I wish these dreams would stop.

 **September 16, 1980**

I'm going to skip writing down the majority of last night's dream, as for most of it Bill and I were discussing things related to my work, and my notes on that will be going down in my work journals – no reason to be redundant. I do want to record the end of the dream though. Bill said something to me and I... well.

I had just finished a rather long-winded explanation, and Bill said to me, "Fascinating as all that is, it's time for you to wake up. Don't want to waste the whole day sleeping away, smart guy."

"Time with you is never a waste," I said. With every one of these dreams I feel myself getting closer to something big, something world-changing. "Still, I suppose it probably is time to wake up."

"Catch you later, Sixer," he said.

I winced. I was so intensely uncomfortable for a moment after he called me that that I actually winced. Stan was always the one to call me Sixer, no one else. It felt wrong having someone else use the nickname. Luckily Bill didn't notice – what am I saying, of course he noticed. He must have. He's just too good a person to say anything about it. He saw it, politely ignored it, woke me up, and the next time I see him we're going to pretend like it didn't happen.

It's ridiculous that I felt uncomfortable anyway. Stan's gone, and he's not coming back. Any claim that he had to the use of that nickname he relinquished when he decided that what he wanted was more important than my happiness. Bill cares about my work, cares about me. Bill is the one who is going be there to support me, the way Stanley used to be, (the way I thought he always would be). So if Bill wants to call me Sixer, he can go right ahead,

 **March 3, 1982**

Last night I dreamt Stanley had finally arrived in response to my postcard. (In reality I'm still not even sure if he will come, if I can even hope) No, I must maintain hope, hope that against all odds and semblance of reason everything might yet not end in total ruin. It may be the only thing I have left.

The Stan on my doorstep in the dream had not aged as he must have in real life. He still looked the same as… not as the last time I saw him (collapsed on the sidewalk in front of our house) right after he ruined my life. He looked like he had a few days earlier than the last time I saw him, the last time we had worked on the Stan O' War together, vibrant and excited and ready for adventure. I invited him in the house and explained to him about what I had done, about Bill and the portal and the deal I had made and everything. Stan immediately understood, was sympathetic and supportive and willing to do whatever it took to help. He said… he said…

Damn it all to hell! I know he said the perfect thing that I needed to hear, but now I can't remember a single word of it. I thought maybe if I wrote the dream out here then it would come back to me, but it appears that I'm to be denied even the illusory comfort of the imaginary words of a version of my brother that no longer exits. What is even the point of this journal if I can't even…?

Finish the entry. Stan agreed to take the journal away. I handed it to him and only then saw the yellow cast to his eyes and the vertical slit of his pupil. I woke up with a scream caught in my throat. I don't think this dream was something caused by Bill's direct interference, just a normal nightmare. Further proof that I shouldn't be allowing myself to fall asleep.

 **August 29, 2012**

It's been over thirty years since my last entry, and I'm still having the same nightmare.

I had actually forgotten all about this journal at some point during my sojourn through the multiverse. Thinking back on it now, I do remember a few times early on when I would wake up from a dream and my fingers would almost itch to write it down, but it never seemed right without this journal here. It's funny in a way, as this is hardly the first dream journal I've had in the sixteen years that I kept one, but it's different trying to start a new one not because the old one got full – or ruined because Stan spilled a glass of orange juice on it – but because it got left behind when I fell through a dimensional portal. After a while, I stopped having the urge to write down my dreams altogether; it certainly never occurred to me to do so at any point after I got back to Dimension 46'\ and had access to this journal again.

So when I had a nightmare again last night and woke up at 4:30 in the morning, I didn't come seeking this journal out right away. Instead I went to the living room and continued to work on our cleaning efforts – since there was no chance of me falling back to sleep it seemed like I should find something useful to do with my time. In the end I was glad I did, because it meant I was there when Mabel came stumbling downstairs an hour later still shaken from her own nightmare.

We went to the kitchen where we shared what would probably add up to a deeply alarming amount of hot chocolate if I let myself think about it too much, and a very long conversation about her nightmare and Weirdmageddon and how I don't blame her for Bill getting free any more than her brother does – none of us do. By the end of it she seemed much calmer, or at least as calm as she could be with that much sugar in her system, and I was feeling better for having helped her.

Then Mabel asked me, "What was your nightmare about?" That girl is alarmingly perceptive when she wants to be. Though, I suppose someone doesn't need to be that perceptive to suspect something is wrong when they find someone up and cleaning at 5:30 in the morning.

"I dreamt that Bill came back," I said, giving her the short version. I knew she wouldn't be satisfied unless I gave her something, but I didn't want to put my worries on her either.

She gave me a shrewd look like she knew there were important details I wasn't sharing, but she didn't accuse me of anything directly. She simply said, "You know I a lot of times when I have bad dreams they're just silly dreams, and then I meow to myself until I fall back to sleep and everything's fine. But other times they're real nightmares, and then I always make sure I talk to someone about them. Dipper, or mom or dad or you or Grunkle Stan. Grunkle Stan is especially good at listening to nightmares."

"I know he is," I said. I don't remember any specific times when I shared one of my nightmares with Stan, but he'd helped me through any number of worries and anxieties when we were kids, and I can't imagine nightmares would be any different. "But I think Stan has enough to deal with right now."

"Maybe," Mabel answered, sounding as though she very much doubted it. "Still, it's important that you get that nightmare out of you Grunkle Ford. If you just leave it inside your head it'll fester and get worse and worse."

That's what reminded me of my old dream journal. So I promised Mabel that I would get the nightmare out of my head, and now that I have a free moment I'm doing exactly that.

The dream began with Stanley and myself sailing on the Stan O' War. Or at least, my brain knew it to be the Stan O' War, though from what I remember it didn't actually look all that much like our old boat – probably just as well, since I don't think the Stan O' War ever actually got to the point that it would have been able to handle the open seas. Stan and I were still old men, but I felt like I was seventeen again, like I was twelve, like I was eight years old and bursting with excitement over the wrecked and abandoned boat my brother and I had just found, and from Stan's expression he felt the same.

I think the dream carried on in that vein for a while, with the two of us hunting treasure and chasing anomalies, but it all blurs together a bit. My recall of my dreams will probably improve again if I decide to start keeping up with this dream journal regularly. For now and for this dream however, all I can remember is a feeling of excitement grounded by deep rooted contentment. Some dreams really do never die.

I wouldn't have had to promise Mabel I would write this dream down if it stayed pleasant though. At the end of the dream Stan and I were sitting out on the deck of the boat fishing and I caught a grindylow – of course in reality a grindylow would never be out so deep in the ocean nor anywhere that far north, but I suppose that's just dream logic for you – and asked Stan to pass me my journal so I could take notes. Stan said, "Sure thing, Sixer." He turned and handed me the journal and I caught sight of his eyes: yellow, with vertical slits for pupils. I woke up with a scream caught in my throat.

There's a very logical reason why I'd be having this particular nightmare, one that's been bothering me whenever I let myself slow down enough to think about it. The memory gun was supposed to erase all of Stan's memories and Bill permanently. Stan's memories are coming back now, so what about Bill? It's a possibility that I need to be aware of and keep a look out for, for a little while at least – if Bill really is back, I doubt he'll have the patience to hide the evidence for long.

Logic, however, usually has very little to do with dreams. That's why, the more I think about it, the more I think that this isn't actually the same nightmare I had thirty years ago. Yes, the broad strokes of what happened are the same – Stan and I reunited and working together after too long apart only for it to turn out that Bill had been possessing Stan the whole time – but as dreams they're very different. The one thirty years ago was about Bill winning. The one I had last night was about Stan losing, about myself losing Stan after I had finally gotten him back. I've already faced that once with the memory gun; I don't know if I can live through it if it happens again.

There's an idea that's been forming in the back of my mind ever since Stan started to regain his memories. I've been putting it off bringing it up, not wanting to push too much on him at once, but maybe I should just bite the bullet and ask him. I don't want to miss another chance.

 **July 18, 2027**

When I entered the dreamscape I immediately knew where I was, despite having only spent a week there – a week plus an unspecified amount of time when I was unconscious – and that almost twenty years ago. I've dreamt of this place many times over the years, less now than I had at first, and it wouldn't be in the least bit surprising if I had dreamt of it last night entirely of my own volition, considering what happened yesterday. This dream wasn't an ordinary dream, however. It had a sort of solid quality to it that I recognized. I might have been concerned, given the last time I had these kinds of dreams, if I weren't standing in Dimension 52, right outside Jheselbraum's shrine.

"Hello?" I called out as I walked in through the open front door.

"In here," came Jheselbraum's response drifting from further down the hallway.

I followed the sound to a room that I think I've been in before, though I don't remember the grand piano being there. Jheselbraum was sitting in an arm chair and she smiled and gestured at the other chair when I walked in. "Ford, come, join me. Would you like some tea? Or I could make pancakes."

"Yes to the tea, but no thank you to the pancakes," I said, sitting down. "When you brought them up during your visit earlier today it put Stan in the mood for them, and we had Stancakes for dinner. Stancakes are what he calls it when he makes pancakes, in part because he's not particularly careful about whether or not he gets his body hair in the batter. I guess if there's one thing to be grateful about this new power he has, it's that he sheds less than he used to."

"I thought you two only ate pancakes when you were celebrating."

"Not as much anymore," I told her. "Besides, it seems like there's always something worth celebrating these days."

Jheselbraum smiled. "I'm glad."

Ii took a sip of tea – tea always tastes just a little better in the mindscape – and said conversationally, "I didn't know you were able to dreamwalk too."

"I might not have been able to the last time you saw me. I certainly had never tried to do it at that point," she said.

"I take it that it's been longer for you than for me since we last saw each other," I said.

"That all depends on the way you look at it. The way you would look at it, yes, it's been a great deal longer," she said.

"Enough time for you to redecorate, at any rate," I said, gesturing at the room around us. I remembered Jheselbraum's shrine as being grand and austere, with simple furnishing and grey stone walls. Now there was gold and marble everywhere, and a lot more in the way of decorations above and beyond all her carvings.

She looked around as though really noticing the place for the first time. "Oh. No, in reality it still looks like when you were here last. This is what it looked like before I took everything down, not long before you arrived actually. It's funny, the place hasn't looked like this for eons, but it's still how my mind pictures home. Except for your room, of course. That's still just the same as when you left it."

"My room?" I echoed. There was the room I had stayed in while I was here, but I assumed that it was a guest room of some kind – I certainly hadn't thought of myself as having a claim on it.

"I let other people use it when the space is needed, of course, but it remains your room," Jheselbraum said.

"Thank you," I said, touched beyond measure. "And you know the rest of this looks, well…" I struggled to find a compliment I could give honestly. Truth be told, the décor was very much not to my tastes. Finally I settled on, "I'm sure Stan would love it."

Jheselbraum laughed. "Yes, I'm very sure he would. It's alright, it's a bit much for me as well."

"Your tastes have changed over the years," I surmised. I don't much care for the look of the place currently, but I could see how it might have had some appeal in my younger years, and Jheselbraum could very well have been the same.

"Almost certainly, but in this case, I wasn't the one who put together the interior design. That was Bill," she said, then calmly took a sip of her tea.

I, meanwhile, barely suppressed the urge to spit my tea out. "Bill?" I asked, nearly choking. "As in Bill _Cipher_?"

"The very same. He lived here for a handful of centuries, hundreds of trillions of years before you ever met him," she said.

"Wait a minute, are you saying Bill is the brother you mentioned. _Bill Cipher_?"

"Hmmm," Jheselbraum said. "Yes, I suppose that brother is as good a word for it as any."

"But, but Bill was evil. And you were so resolved to see him ended. How…?"

Jheselbraum sighed heavily, then placed her teacup and saucer down on the table between our two chairs. "I care for Bill, but that doesn't mean I condone what he did or I was blinded to the fact that he needed to be stopped, no matter the cost. You need to remember Bill's life is longer than you could possibly comprehend and in that time he's a lot of different things to a lot of different people."

"Is?" I'm not proud of how high and strangled my voice went on that word, but in the interest of full disclosure I feel I ought to admit that it was very.

"Was," she corrected. "I apologize, I've been having a bit of trouble with tenses lately. Don't worry, he won't trouble you again."

"Good," I said, feeling my heart slow down to a more normal rhythm. "But I still don't understand. You're sure he didn't trick you into thinking he had a better nature? Because you know I would understand."

"No, he wasn't tricking me. I'll admit I thought that for a time, and there was also a time when I was a little too ready to overlook some of his faults, but now I'm sure he was genuine in the time he spent with me. As genuine as he ever is, anyway." Jheselbraum reached over and placed a hand on my wrist in silent comfort. "It's alright, Ford. You can take all the time you need to think this over. Or don't think on it at all if you don't want. I just thought it was time you knew the truth – or my part in it at least – even if you aren't ready to understand it yet."

"I doubt I'll ever be ready to understand why someone would want to befriend Bill," I said.

Looking at the words down on the page now, they seem unnecessarily harsh. My only defense is I hadn't intended them to be a slight to Jheselbraum in any way; I was only attempting to express my hatred of Bill. Though, given she had outright proclaimed to care for Bill and called him her brother not five minutes before I said that, I suppose she might have taken it poorly even if she knew I wasn't trying to insult her. I certainly wouldn't take it well if someone said something like that about Stanley. Actually, come to think of it, I punched the last person that said something like that about Stanley, though in fairness I was a little drunk at the time.

I may need to put more effort into thinking before I speak.

Luckily, Jheselbraum is far more even-tempered than I. She didn't appear to get upset at all, just calmly said, "He's hurt you a lot, I know."

"He forced me to kill my brother," I snapped. Pointing the memory gun at Stan's head and pulling the trigger was the worst moment of my life, bar none. With a time and a lot of reassurance from Stan, I've mostly forgiven myself for my part in what happened, but I will never forgive Bill for that.

"And yet, Stanley is still alive and well last I saw," Jheselbraum said gently. "Wounds fade. Scars heal. Never forget what Bill Cipher was, but remember too that it wasn't all he ever was. You will understand eventually."

She may be right. But then, she always is. Now that the first shock has worn off, I can sit down and think about the situation in the abstract and then I do understand it. Stan has certainly done a number of things in his past that I don't condone, but I forgive him for it anyway, because he's my brother. It helps that he's left that all behind him now – well, most of it – but even if he still were a criminal I would still care about him. He's done things to make me angry and things that made me want to never have anything to do with him ever again, but I don't think there's anything he could do to make me stop caring about him, and I do understand. Then I remember we're talking about Bill Cipher, not Stan, and I stop understanding.

Jheselbraum pulled herself a little straighter after she said that and fussed with her skirt a little, as though brushing off the seriousness of our previous topic of discussion – I am continually amazed at the way beings who look so alien and who at times act so alien and who come from dimensions so very alien to my own can still have behaviors that feel so idiosyncratically human. "Now as I recall, I had to leave yesterday afternoon before we had a chance to catch up. Please, tell me all about your adventures."

We talked for a long time, at first about all the adventures Stan and I had been on sailing on the Stan O' War II and the discoveries we had made, but at some point the conversation shifted to my family, which has grown almost impossibly large in the passing years. In part that's simply due to children getting older and finding partners and having children of their own, but my definition of family has also been greatly expanded over the past fifteen years.

I think she must have known at least some of what I told her already, and I'm certain she could have known all of it, if she had applied her mind to the knowing of it, but she listened to all of it attentively anyway. But then there is a difference between knowing something – even knowing it the way she does which seems like more than simple knowing – and having it told to you by someone else who experienced it firsthand. I'm not a vivid storyteller the way Stan is, but with so many people, kids and adults alike, demanding stories over the years I like to think I've gotten pretty good at it all the same. Jheselbraum seemed to be enjoying herself, even as I talked long past when my mouth would have gone dry and throat sore if it hadn't been a dream.

"I missed this," I said when the conversation finally slowed down to a trickle.

"It's always lovely having you here," Jheselbraum said. "Even if you aren't technically here."

"Thank you for having me. I really should get going, though. I'm sure it's getting pretty late into the morning in the real world," I said, standing up.

"Late in the evening, actually," she replied. I nearly started panicking – how on Earth had everyone reacted when I hadn't woken up that morning? What ill-advised thing had Stan already done with his new powers in an attempt to rouse me when nothing else worked? – but Jheselbraum cut in before I could get too deep into it. "Not to worry. I'll give time a bit of a twitch so you'll wake up when you always do."

"You can do that?" I asked.

"I can do a great many things," she answered. "It was a pleasure to see you again."

"You too. And so soon after the last time," I said. There was a glint of amusement in her eyes that abruptly reminded me that it hadn't been very soon after the last time for her. "We will see each other again, won't we?"

"Maybe," she said. Jheselbraum gripped both my forearms and pressed her forehead against mine, which I have discovered to be her way of showing affection. Then, to my surprise, she shifted her arms to wrap them around me and drew me into a hug.

Jheselbraum is a superb hugger – I feel very qualified to judge that, given the sheer number of superb huggers I know. It certainly helps that she's at least eight, possibly nine feet tall so when she hugged me I was completely engulfed in a way I haven't been since I was a child. It felt safe.

"Fare well, Ford." She said it just like that, as two separate words. "Have faith in your in your choices. When the time comes, I know you'll make the right one." Then I woke up, before I could ask her what choice she was talking about. I'm still not sure what she was referring to, but I think it must have something to do with what she was talking about with Bill earlier in the dream. A disconcerting notion, but it makes sense.

Ah well, I suppose there's not much to do about it until 'the time comes,' whenever that may be. For now I'll just have to trust Jheselbraum as she trusts me.

 **December 11, 2039**

I think this will be my last entry. My hands aren't what they used to be and it's difficult to write this much. The kids keep trying to get me to use one of their little gadgets with the speech-to-text function, but it's just not the same as using a pen and paper. No, I'll just be done with this exercise and be content with any discoveries that occur in my dreams remaining undiscovered.

One last dream before I close this out. Last night I dreamt of being eight again back on that old swing set in Glass Shard Beach with Stan. When I think of that swing set now, I always think of sitting on it drifting gently back and forth, conversations of great import and no real relevance tangling together as we watched the sky darken and the stars come out. In the dream though, Stan and I were using the swing set for its intended purpose, pumping our legs furiously and sending ourselves higher and higher until Stan leaped off his swing and to the ground.

"Ha! Beat that Sixer," he called.

I kept swinging for a few more arcs, determined to get as high as possible before I jumped. I could feel the swing set rattling as the chain loosened at the top of the arcs and go taunt again as I came back down. Back and forth, higher and higher, and then I jumped. For a moment it felt like I was flying. Then I came back down, crashing directly on top of Stan.

Up until this point the dream had actually been a memory, albeit probably an inexact one with the way the details have grown fuzzy over the years. In reality what happened after that is I sprained my wrist, Stan fractured his collarbone, and we were both banned from jumping off the swings ever again – not that that stopped us.

In the dream we both tumbled to the ground, but neither of us were hurt. Stan just laughed through his wheezing. "Get off; you're heavy."

I was laughing too hard to move right away, but eventually Stan shoved me and I rolled off. "Okay, you stay there and my turn to land on top of you now," Stan said, running back to the swing set.

"Yeah well, I'm actually going to catch you," I said back.

Stan stuck his tongue out at me. "You can try." Stan swung higher and higher and jumped soaring through the air. That's when I woke up, so I'm not sure if I would have caught him or if we both would have gone sprawling again. Or maybe he would have flown off into the air like he's been trying learn to do ever since Jheselbraum said he'd be able to one day.

I guess I'll never know. One final mystery to end things on.

 **February 12, 2047**

It seems I have one more entry left after all. I shouldn't even be writing this down at all, I don't think, but Mabel – or was it Dipper? No, I'm fairly sure it was Mabel – was right all those years ago; there are just some dreams that shouldn't stay inside your head. Luckily when I woke up my hands felt better than they have in ages, though perhaps that isn't so surprising all things considered. In any case, I'm feeling well to write this down.

I thought about writing on some loose paper so I could immediately burn it after, but after staring at the blank page for 20 minutes I had to admit that it still doesn't feel right without my journal. I'll just have to tear these pages out afterward. No, I can't do that. I can't leave Stan another journal with pages missing. Maybe I'll just throw it down the bottomless pit. If Stan even recalls that I have a dream journal, then finding it missing after so many years might only mean it got misplaced at some point, nothing to be concerned about. Yes, that's what I'll do, though it might be better to ask Melody to do it for me – that little scamp is always eager to have something to throw down there and even as good as I feel this morning I don't trust my mobility that far.

I just wrote Melody. Melody is Soos's wife, Melanie is the name of their granddaughter. I suppose it's like they say, the mind is the last thing to go. Or is it supposed to be the first? I guess it doesn't matter either way at this point.

It is absolutely imperative that Stan doesn't see this entry. It's not good for anyone to know too much about their own future regardless, and I don't know that he's ready to know this. I don't know that I was ready to know, but there wasn't much time left. Anyway, I trust Axolotl and Jheselbraum to know what they're doing.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Last night I had a Dream. Note the capitalization, the emphasis is most certainly warranted. I found myself in a strangely glittery milky-white void. It was a very different place than the starry fields that Bill summoned up from my mindscape or Jheselbraum's shrine in Dimension 52, but I knew immediately it was the same, or rather the same sort of place. The first thing I noticed was I was younger there, though not young precisely. I would guess my age to be around early sixties, though that was only a rough guess, and the dreamscape resisted my attempts to conjure a mirror to check my reflection.

"Welcome, Stanford Pines. Please, make yourself comfortable." There was a leather chair next to me, looking like something I might have had in my study at some time or other. I sat down in it and it was infinitely comfortable. Words do not exist to describe how comfortable this chair was. It was beyond anything. I think I may be underselling it here.

At first I was immensely suspicious of the whole affair. I've only been 50/50 with regards to the benevolence of beings that hijack my dreams, and in my experience neither people that hide from you nor people who go so far out of their way to assure you of their good intentions are typically up to any good. However, it was then that my host suddenly appeared and vanquished my doubts.

Note, I say suddenly appeared, because objectively that's what happened, but at the time it didn't feel sudden at all. It seemed perfectly natural that I should be seeing a 20-foot newt-like creature in front of me where there previously had been nothing but indistinct glittery swirls. This might have been a manifestation of typical dream logic, but I rather suspect I wasn't surprised because my host didn't want me to be. Not to say that my emotions were being manipulated, rather the situation was just designed so it couldn't possibly be surprising... I'm not explaining this well.

I recognized her instantly, of course. Even though it's been something like twenty years since I've been to Jheselbraum's shrine, in a manner of speaking, it's hard to forget all the carvings on the walls of the very being now before me. Though I will confess I pictured her a little smaller than what I was seeing at that moment. "Greetings… uh." That was when I realized that despite knowing her as Jheselbraum's… friend, I suppose, I'd never actually asked about her or even what her name was.

"I am The Axolotl," she said. Then she sort of twitched and instantly shrunk so that she was only around four inches long and was floating less than a foot away from my face. "You can call me Axolotl."

I reached up without thinking and she darted quickly back out of my reach. "Careful," she said.

I apologized immediately. It's a bit of a flaw of mine, I know. I would never randomly touch another human I didn't know well, but I don't always remember not to do it with other sapient creatures. Terribly rude of me, and it's gotten me in trouble more than once over the years.

"Do you mind telling me why I'm here?" I asked, once I was sure I hadn't offended with my thoughtless gesture.

"Symmetry," Axolotl replied.

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

Axolotl hummed in response, but didn't see fit to elaborate on her answer. She considered me for several long moments, then said, "Hold up your hands."

"Alright," I agreed, doing as she asked. It struck me as a strange request, but harmless. Besides, despite her previous friendship with Bill, I trust Jheselbraum's judgement, and she certainly seemed to trust Axolotl.

My hands apparently warranted even longer consideration than my person, but finally Axolotl came in closer to the right hand. She blew on it, and suddenly my hand was engulfed in blue flames, the exact flames that Bill had used when making his deals.

"What did you do?" I demanded, snatching my hands back. The blue fire, I was relieved to see, disappeared instantly.

Axolotl laughed – there is no sound as odd as the intersection of bubbling laughter and the way Axolotl voice ebbs and flows like whale song. It wasn't an unpleasant sound, but definitely odd. "I only showed what was already there. Until the end of time."

"But Jheselbraum severed that connection," I said, my hands shaking. Bad enough to have my own words and foolishness flung back at me, but to think that some part of Bill was still on me…

"She cut the connection, but she couldn't undo you shaking his hand, and the touch lingers. He's very possessive of you," said Axolotl.

"Possessive of me? You must be confused," I said. "Bill only ever saw me as a tool, someone he could trick into letting him free."

"I'm never confused," Axolotl said. "Your other hand, please." I was more hesitant this time, but I did lift my left hand up for her. She apparently didn't need any more consideration, because she immediately darted in and used her snout to place the lightest of touches on my middle finger – that is the middle of the five excluding the thumb.

I hadn't realized it at the time, and I'm not certain it's even important, but recalling it now, I realize the finger she touched was the one that doctors generally theorized to be my extra finger. They were never able to confirm with full confidence anything beyond it being central polydactyly, as all my digits are fully functional and originate at the wrist, but I suspect they must have been right after all.

A frisson of power went through me, centralized at the point where Axolotl had touched and on the matching point on the other hand. The blue fire flared up momentarily, but this time when it faded out it didn't go away completely, remaining as a ghostly glow. I glared at it, willing it to die out, but it stubbornly remained.

"You don't have anywhere near the power to wipe that clean. Only just enough to see truly," Axolotl said.

"You have the power to get rid of it, don't you?" I asked.

"I have the power to do most anything," she replied. "But that's not what I brought you here for."

"You brought me here for symmetry," I said, still uncertain what that was supposed to mean.

"Symmetry for me, and for you to make a decision. Now hush, and look." She gestured to a spot in the distance. At first I thought it was no different than any other spot in the formless void, but then I realized the glitter seemed thicker there. As I watched, it got progressively thicker and the sparkles – for lack of a better word – got larger until the whole space was a bright white light.

I was just about to turn back to ask Axolotl if there was a reason she was trying to blind me when I realized I could see a spot of color inside the infinite white. As soon I as I realized it was there, it came swiftly into focus. Bill Cipher. He looked almost just the same as I remembered him, except there was something around him now. An aura is the best way I can think to describe it. That aura began shooting out tendrils as I watched, each of them rooting themselves deep into the endless white void he was an – a different void than ours luckily. "What's going on; what's he doing?" I asked.

"This is just before he burns. He thinks he's in your mind and he's making sure nothing can ever shut him out again," Axolotl explained.

"But that's Stanley's mind. He can't…" I trailed off, because he quite manifestly could do it, and it wasn't as though Bill had known it was Stan's mind. That had been the entire point, after all.

"It was ill done of him, though not surprising. He's always rash, never considering the consequences of his actions."

"Consequences like leaving Stan with his powers after he's gone?" I asked.

"Only indirectly," she said. "Now hush, watch. It's important."

So I watched, unable to help the proud and triumphant smile that stole its way across my face. I've heard the story from Stan hundreds of times of course, but there was something especially satisfying about personally witnessing my brother taking Bill down a peg.

The smile fell off a moment later. The scene had reached the part where Bill's form began to glitch out accompanied by incoherent screaming. At least, that's how Stan had always described it, but the screaming didn't sound the least bit incoherent to me. I heard each word Bill said as clear as day. "A-X-O-L-O-T-L, my time has come to burn! I invoke the ancient power that I may return!"

"He's calling your name. He's calling your name so _he can return_ ," I said, unable and unwilling to keep the accusation from my voice.

"Hush!"

Mulishly I turned back just in time to see Stan punch Bill into oblivion. The flames in Stan's mind grew higher – blue flames, Bill's flames, and why am I only just realizing that now? Denial, maybe. Eventually the flames took over everything and the light whited out again, so I was staring through the portal into the very same dimension I was in now, but in a different time and place – if such a thing even exists there.

Axolotl was visible there, with her paws cupped together in front of her. Slowly she curled each separate paw closed and pulled them apart, until she was holding them both in front of here, face up and closed. Then she opened them and for the first time I saw how truly enormous she must be in the vision, for cradled snuggly in either hand was Bill and Stan. She smiled at the two of them and said, "Don't worry; I'm sending you back home."

Axolotl pulled her paws closed again, but not before I saw the change in them. Stan mostly stayed the same except for his expression. The vantage point that we were watching from should have been wrong for seeing Stan's face, not to mention much too far away, but I could make out each detail as clearly as if he were standing right in front of me. He was looking up at Axolotl with an awed and terrified expression on his face that slowly went slack and blank. I was watching him lose himself all over again, and I felt the same pain and guilt that I felt that day all over again as well. I knew that the loss wouldn't last, that in a week's time from that moment I'd have my brother back more so than since I was seventeen, but watching him just then, it didn't seem to matter.

Even still, it paled in comparison to what I saw happen to Bill. He too was looking up at Axolotl with the same expression of awe and terror. The exact same expression, which I know for a fact because as I watched him his body flickered and changed again, but not into another twisted version of a triangle. No, Bill flickered and changed and turned into Stanley. At first he was the mirror image of Stan in Axolotl's right hand, but he began to rapidly grow younger such that by the time Axolotl's paw closed he was a squalling infant.

Once both paws were completely closed, the vision vanished and the glitter dissipated, leaving me once again alone in the glittering void with the pocketed-sized Axolotl.

"I don't understand," I said, and I could hear the thread of panic starting to rise in my voice.

"Lying doesn't suit you," Axolotl replied.

"Then I don't want to understand," I snapped, but understanding was coming on hard and fast regardless. Bill Cipher had called on Axolotl as he died so he could return and she had obviously answered that call. There had been so many things over the years, a myriad of little ways that Bill had reminded me of Stan. Or maybe that was ways that Stan had reminded me of Bill. And Jheselbraum had said, hadn't she, that Bill had been a lot of different things to a lot of different people over time, and that would make so much more sense, wouldn't it, if she was extending that beyond just Bill as he had been. We'll meet again some sunny day, on June 15th, 1954 in Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey. "It can't be true," I whispered.

"What can't be true?" Axolotl asked, her tone gentle, coaxing.

"When Bill burned, he called on you so he could return," I said, my voice halting. "You answered and sent him back to be… reincarnated as a human. Bill became Stanley. Stan is Bill."

"That's the half of it," Axolotl said.

"But how is that possible? How could Bill possibly become Stan?"

"They aren't that different. You've noticed as much yourself," she said mildly, as if she weren't discussing the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard.

"Yes, I've noticed they share certain superficial mannerisms, but Bill was _evil_. He was trying to destroy our dimension, he threatened to kill the kids. Stan would die before he ever let anything happen to Dipper or Mabel." A part of me must have realized at the time the illogic of that – Bill had become Stan, but that wouldn't mean he would hold the affections that Stan had. I was just in denial and throwing out anything could think of to prove it wasn't true.

"Morality is relative," she said with a laugh in her voice. "I don't condone or excuse what he did, but he was never intending to be evil. All he wanted was fun and excitement and a distraction from how very lonely he was."

"He was lonely? He was _lonely_? Maybe if he didn't want to be alone he shouldn't have destroyed his home dimension," I said.

She grinned at me. "Now Ford, you know better to believe everything he tells you. He's a liar."

"He didn't tell me that, Jheselbraum did. Though I suppose he could have told her or told someone else that she then heard it from. Regardless, why would he lie about destroying his own dimension?"

"He thought it made him sound more interesting," Axolotl said.

"Oh good lord," I said. I thought to myself that sounded exactly like something Stanley would do and then immediately quashed the thought. It was all too much to take in at once, and I shook my head in a vain attempt to clear it. "I can't… I need some time to process this."

"You're welcome to stay here for as long as you need," she said.

"I'd rather think it over in my own home," I said delicately.

Her tail twitched back and forth. "There's not enough time. Here there's no time so you can have as much time as you want. Sit, think, and then call me when you're ready to continue." She vanished.

So I did. I'm not sure how long I sat there, hours, days, months, years, it could have been any of them or all of them or none of them. During Weirdmageddon Bill had claimed time to be "dead" and he was evidentially correct, given that we eventually came out the other side on the same day and time that we went in, but in the event time didn't feel dead. It felt like it was passing at the same rate as it normally did – or at least it had when I was unfrozen and conscious for it. Here in Axolotl's realm time truly felt like it was not only dead, but non-existent. It made me wonder how much of what Bill did was just a pale imitation of Axolotl.

That thought stopped me in my tracks, bringing me back for a moment to childhood, to Crampelter calling Stan a dumber, sweatier version of me, to teachers telling him to apply himself and asking him why he couldn't be more like me, to Pa throwing Stan out of the house yelling, "All you ever do is lie and cheat right on your brother's coattails." There had been so many people growing up that had tried to make Stan feel like he was in some kind of competition with me and losing, like he wasn't good enough just being himself. Granted, from an objective perspective of good versus evil, Bill wasn't really good at all, but a part of me still rankled against anyone calling Stan not good enough. Even if it wasn't really Stan.

Something in me settled at that. Not a feeling of peace exactly, I don't know that I could ever be at peace with my twin brother being the reincarnation of my most hated tormentor even if I lived for another ninety-two years. Still, what is, is. I don't have to like it, but I can't change it so no point in kicking up a fuss about it. Best to just accept it and move on.

No sooner had I decided to accept it than Axolotl appeared before me again, this time roughly the size of a medium-large dog. "You've got good timing," I said.

"Generally," she agreed. "But in this case, you called me."

"I did?"

"We're still in my home; you don't have to call very loud."

"That's useful. Okay, I think I'm ready to make whatever decision you brought me here to make," I said.

Her pleasant expression – she's surprisingly readable for someone who essentially looks like a giant newt – didn't shift one bit as she said, "No, you're not." I was going to object that I knew my own mind well enough to know whether or not I was ready, but she continued before I could. "I told you already, you only have half the information you need right now."

A comment she'd made earlier, one that I had overlooked at the time, too caught up in my existential crisis, came back then with startling clarity. _That's the half of it_. I closed my eyes briefly and took in a deep breath. "Is the second half easier to digest than the first at least?"

"That really depends on you, doesn't it? Still, I gave you what I thought would be easier for you to hear first, and now that you have heard it, I think this will be easier to take as well," Axolotl said.

"Okay, what is it?"

She paused for a moment, then flipped upside down in the air and looked at me closely. "I think maybe you already know, actually. You just haven't realized it yet. Stan is Bill and…"

Put like that, the answer was blindingly simple. After our last encounter with Bill, after Stan's encounter with Axolotl, Stan had developed powers. Not remnants of Bill's power lurking in him, but his own powers that were exactly identical to Bill's, expect smaller. He had also stopped ageing entirely and I have my doubts as to whether he can be killed by any conventional means now. So if he just kept going on and on, and his power grew and grew, and he forgot everything about the people who loved him and he loved, if he forgot Dipper and Mabel and Soos and Wendy and all the people of Gravity Falls, if he forgot about me, then what might Stan become? Lonely, he would become very, very lonely.

Axolotl was right. I had already accepted during that time sitting in the void by myself and thinking that Bill and Stan were one and the same, and part of me knew that meant it went both ways. Stan is Bill and Bill is Stan. Caught up in an endless loop, living the same life out over and over again.

"Why?" I asked. "Why would you do that to him?"

She flipped back over and answered very matter-of-factly. "I do what I do because that is all there is to be done. Besides, he asked me to do it."

"He asked to return, but somehow I doubt this is what he had in mind," I said.

"I know you can't understand it, but this isn't something I forced on him. This is his choice." Something about the way she said it made it clear that she meant can't in the sense of being fundamentally incapable of doing something. I still don't know if I believe that Axolotl didn't have some role in deciding this, but I do believe it's possible that there are things involved that are simply beyond my comprehension. Given what happened next, I also believe that whatever Bill's intentions were in calling for her, Axolotl truly believed that her response was what he wanted.

"Now it's time for you choice, Ford," she continued. "You've lived a long and full life."

"Full certainly, but I don't know I'd call it long, given the present company."

"Long for a human, and I would never judge anyone by any standards but their own," she said. It's very fair-minded of her, but I think she's just naturally like that. "So my question is this: given the chance, would you do it all again?"

In retrospect, I'm not sure how I mistook her meaning here. Given what we'd just been discussing it should have been obvious, but my first question was, "You mean you'd give me a second chance? An opportunity to go back and fix my mistakes?"

"Another chance certainly, but you wouldn't remember having lived your life already any more than he does. You would still make all the mistakes you had on the last time through," she said.

She was offering to let me play out the exact same life all over again and end up in the exact same place all over again so I could make the exact same choice all over again and again and again and again. I would be in an endless loop, just like Stan is. "Repeating the exact same mistakes infinitely many times sounds like a curse," I said.

"Only you can decide if living your life through again constitutes a curse or not. Remember though, it's not only the mistakes you would repeat; you would get to relive all the best moments of your life too, and with your soul wiped clean each old adventure will be new all over again."

"What happens if I say no?" I asked.

"Then you'll move on to what's next, the same as everyone else, the same as every other version of you across the multiverse," Axolotl said.

"And what happens to Stan, depending on what I choose?"

"Nothing. His life will be how it is; it's a fact of reality. This is a decision you make for yourself." She smiled at me, a soft expression. "I promise it's okay for you to be selfish this time."

"I need time to think about this," I said. It's a decision that's going to impact my entire existence for the rest of all eternity, after all. "Do you mind if I sit here for a while again?"

"I can't allow that this time. Dreams are fine for truth, but decisions should be made in reality," she explained. Given the last decision I made in a dream, I couldn't really disagree with that assertion.

"Alright, then how am I supposed to let you know what my decision is?"

"If you wish to move forward you need not do anything. If choose to return, then call on me as you breathe your last. I will come," said Axolotl.

"And when will that be?" I asked. I didn't want to accidentally put off deciding for too long because I didn't know when the deadline was.

Axolotl gave me a quizzical look. "I'm sure he already warned you. Your heart stops tomorrow evening."

Heart attack at ninety-two. Apparently Bill hadn't been lying after all. "He never mentioned a specific date," I said. "But tomorrow? That doesn't give me very much time."

"It gives you exactly as much time as you need," she said, and I suppose she would know. It's my understanding that she knows everything. "It's time now for you to wake up, Ford. Enjoy your last day and remember, if you want me, call, and I will come."

Then I woke up, and sat down to write this before Stan gets up. He tends to hover, and I can't let him see me writing this. Luckily, he also sleeps in much later than me most mornings. While his dedication when he had a goal that he considers important is nothing short of admirable, he is otherwise the laziest immortal being I've ever met. I guess some things really don't ever change.

I was disappointed to find out that Axolotl wasn't offering me a chance to fix my mistakes; there are so many things in my life that I wish I had done differently. I was disappointed, but only at first. The problem with wishes is they live in a fantasy world, one where everything falls together perfectly and there are no unforeseen negative consequences to any actions. I might wish that I had spoken up when Pa kicked Stan out of the house, or I had listened to Fiddleford when he tried to warn me about the portal, or that when I returned home after being lost in the multiverse I had greeted Stanley with a hug instead of a punch, but those are still just wishes.

In a wish I can imagine that together Ma and I might have been able to change Pa's mind about kicking Stan out, but what if instead I got kicked out with Stan? I survived the multiverse at 28, but I don't know that I would have managed living on the streets at 17; I probably would have only dragged Stan even further down. Listening to Fiddleford might not have worked out either, as even his earliest warning didn't come until after I had already made the deal allowing Bill to possess me, and likely I would have only managed to get Fiddleford dragged into that nightmare with me. Then there was that first summer home; no matter how much I wish that I had allowed myself to be on better terms with Stan then, that would have had a huge impact on how the events of that first month played out. That means that even if Weirdmageddon did still happen, it likely wouldn't have ended with Bill entering Stan's mind and being erased. Given the entirety of Stan and Bill's existence apparently hinges around that moment with Axolotl, I shudder to think what the fallout of negating that would be.

Maybe in the end everything worked out the way it was supposed to, and even my mistakes were ones that needed making. All for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Though that seems an arrogant thing to say in a proven multiverse. And I am not as of yet convinced there's a benevolent God that put all this together, but if there is I've met her and I doubt that an omniscient omnipotent newt is exactly what Leibniz had in mind… This thought process is getting away from me. The point is, maybe erasing the bad times would mean losing the good ones as well, and that's not a risk I'm willing to take. Put like that, I can say with confidence that there's nothing that's happened or I've done in my life that I regret, because it all led to happiness in the end.

So now one question remains: would I do it all again?

* * *

AN: Next story is "ab aeterno" (Story ID:12745861)


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